


Ships Passing in the Night

by barbitone



Series: Voltron Fanfiction [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, if anyone even uses that anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 11:12:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbitone/pseuds/barbitone
Summary: Shiro has nightmares, Lotor has insomnia. They find a way to help each other, if only for a little while.





	Ships Passing in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,  
> Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;  
> So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,  
> Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
> 
> _-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn_

 

* * *

 

Shiro jerked awake with a gasp, his heart pounding loud in his ears and his back slick with sweat. The nightmare was already fading but he was still shaking with terror, still overtaken by the desire to _run_. He reminded himself where he was and forced himself to stay still and breathe deeply as he waited for his heart to slow, and when that didn’t happen he stood and got dressed.

He’d been managing pretty well for a while, or at least he’d been doing alright. But after the second time he was captured all the old anxieties and nightmares had slammed back into him twice as hard as before. It wasn’t so bad during the day when he had so much to distract him, when he had to keep it together for the others, but at night he was alone and it was impossible to pretend to be in control. He’d thought maybe Zarkon’s death would help calm his fear but it was too new, too fresh- it had all happened only a few short hours ago. Now he was left afraid of what was waiting for them, of the Galra Empire fracturing into chaos and the destruction they’d be facing then.

His feet took him on a by-now familiar path through the castle, almost like he was on patrol. The halls were completely deserted, dark and silent except for the soft hum of the engines in the distance. He walked past the rooms of the others, past the training deck, the medbay, the labs, the mess hall, and headed towards the bridge to check the long-range sensors, just to make sure everything was still alright.

When he turned a corner into the next corridor he frowned as he saw flickering light spilling out into the hallway from the open door of one of the meeting rooms. Shiro drew closer slowly, hardly daring to draw a breath even as he told himself there was no reason to be so anxious. He paused at the threshold, peering inside.

The room was dark except for the light coming from a video on the main screen. Lotor stood with his back to the door, watching intently. His posture was almost painfully stiff and upright but he’d pulled his hair over one shoulder and was running his fingers through it slowly. The video was something Shiro hadn’t seen before, definitely not from the castle’s databanks. He frowned a little as he leaned in closer.

It was a security feed from the bridge of what must have been Lotor’s cruiser and Shiro wondered what was so important about it. There was no sound, nothing really happening. On screen Lotor was sitting sprawled in the captain’s chair, leaning his cheek on his hand as he read something on a datapad with a bored expression over his face. His generals were there too- Acxa was flipping through sensor readings at her console, the blind general Narti was petting her cat slowly as she did something at navigations. Zethrid was talking to Ezor, who was eating some kind of pastry. She grinned, dropping crumbs on the weapons controls and Zethrid frowned at her.

Lotor said something without looking up from his datapad and Ezor’s eyes widened before she burst out into laughter and then started choking on her pastry. Zethrid sighed and slapped her on the back like this wasn’t the first, or even tenth, time she’d had to do it and then all five of them were laughing.

Shiro couldn’t help staring at Lotor on the screen, at how happy he seemed, and then looked at Lotor standing before him, combing through his hair with his fingers. What was he doing? What was this?

The video continued, Lotor and his generals resumed doing what they’d been doing before- nothing much. The picture dissolved into static and Lotor reached for the screen, starting it from the beginning.

Shiro shivered a little, knowing he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to and unable to look away. He stood rooted to his spot for the next few minutes watching the screen, the slow meditative way in which Lotor stroked his hair. Ezor was dropping crumbs, Zethrid was slapping her on the back, they were all laughing soundlessly, the video dissolved into static. Lotor reached out and started it again.

“I didn’t take you for the type to skulk around,” he said quietly.

Shiro jerked at that, flushing with embarrassment at having been caught watching. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “Do you want me to leave?”

“It’s your ship, you may go where you like.”

That wasn’t exactly a no but it wasn’t a yes either. Lotor still hadn’t moved from his spot and Shiro found himself unsure about what to do. On screen Lotor and his generals were laughing. The video ended. Lotor reached out and started it again.

Shiro took a chance and walked into the room, stopping beside him. Lotor’s face was carefully blank but his eyes were glittering oddly, or maybe it was just the reflection of the video. There was a strange hush in the air, reverent and mournful.

“Trouble sleeping?” Shiro asked carefully.

“Always,” Lotor said absently. “And you?”

“Only most of the time,” Shiro said with a wry smile.

Now that he was closer he could see that Acxa and Narti weren’t working at all, they were playing some kind of puzzle game against each other on their consoles. He could see the way Zethrid‘s hand lingered fondly on Ezor’s back. On screen Lotor didn’t really seem bored after all, his eyebrows were drawn down intently and the edges of his lips were quirked up into a small smile.

Shiro found his heart aching for Lotor, hungrily watching this warm quiet moment of himself with the team that had betrayed and abandoned him before giving his father the means to buy his life with. And it was Shiro’s own team that had sold him.

After all that he was still here, helping them despite what they’d done. He’d destroyed their greatest enemy for them and while the others slept safe and snug in their warm beds here was his reward- he was free at last to stand silently in a cold dark room, alone.

Why didn’t the video have sound? Had he turned it off, unable to bear it, or had the file been damaged somehow and he was standing here wishing it hadn’t been? There was something gut wrenching about watching the silent laughter, something utterly heartbreaking in the way Lotor reached out and started the video again.

“I have nightmares,” Shiro blurted out into the deafening silence. He felt like he was seeing something painfully intimate and wanted to share something of himself in return.

“I used to have nightmares,” Lotor said. All this time Shiro had been here he still hadn’t looked away from the screen, hadn’t stopped carding through his hair. “Now I just have… regrets.”

Lotor reached out to start the video again but Shiro couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t bear to let whatever this was continue. He moved without quite meaning to, taking Lotor by the wrist.

“Stop,” he said.

Lotor stilled and looked over at him at last. “Apologies,” he said, pulling out of Shiro’s grasp and letting his hands drop to his sides. “Do you need the room?”

“No. It’s the middle of the night, you should get some rest.”

“This is- restful,” Lotor said, looking back at the screen longingly, frowning a little to see it full of static.

“No, it isn’t,” Shiro said quietly.

“It’s better than pacing alone in my empty quarters.” Lotor’s hand twitched a little at his side, like he wanted to reach for the screen again.

“When I was a child and I couldn’t sleep,” Shiro said, trying to bring some warmth into the room, “my aunt would make me hot chocolate and read me a story. I was on my way to the mess hall now to make a cup. Come with me.”

Lotor looked over at him with something like interest. “Hot chocolate?”

“Yeah, it’s like-” Shiro smiled at little, looking away and running a hand through his hair. “Well, it’s like a warm sweet drink. We can’t really make the real thing but Hunk figured out something close. It’s good, I’ll show you.”

Lotor looked back at the screen and then sighed, shutting it down and throwing them into near perfect darkness.

“Come on,” Shiro said. He felt a little braver in the dark and he reached out to take Lotor’s hand before leading him away.

“I didn’t have an aunt,” Lotor said pensively as they walked. “But my governess, Dayak, she would- when I had nightmares she would brush my hair and tell me fairytales. My father was so angry when he found out. He tried to tell her off but she-” he huffed out a soft laugh, the sound echoing oddly through the quiet halls. “She scolded him. I’ve never seen him cowed like that before or since.”

Shiro smiled as he listened. It felt like Lotor was sharing a secret, like they both were.

Once they made it to the mess hall Shiro fixed two cups of the almost hot chocolate, adding a generous dollop of Altean brandy to both. When Lotor stared at him in surprise Shiro grinned at him.

“Well, we’re not children anymore, are we?” he said before handing over a cup.

Lotor tried it cautiously and smiled, his whole face briefly lighting up with delight. “It’s- very good,” he said at last.

Shiro couldn’t help laughing a little. “Yeah,” he said. “You know I was going to- I was going to read for a bit,” he said, hoping he wasn’t pushing his luck. “You could come with me, I could- read out loud?”

His heart was beating loudly in his chest as he watched Lotor frown and look away, back towards the meeting room, the screen, the video.

“Don’t go back there,” Shiro said. “Don’t. Come with me instead.”

Under any other circumstances he knew Lotor would have refused, but it was the middle of the night and they were both trapped in some kind of cold and quiet in-between world. Shiro was afraid to go back to sleep and Lotor was lonely and maybe they’d be alright for a little while, if they were together.

“Alright,” Lotor said at last and followed Shiro back to his room.

“You can take your armor off if you want to get comfortable, I don’t mind,” Shiro said as he went to his bed and pulled extra blankets and pillows out of the storage compartment underneath. He was careful to keep his tone casual and light for fear of spooking Lotor away, careful not to look back as he straightened the sheets and dropped the new blankets and pillows on top.

He toed off his boots and grabbed his datapad and cup of hot chocolate before carefully climbing on the bed, sitting with his back against the far wall. When he looked up he saw Lotor had taken off his armor and set the pieces out carefully over the table. He stood tall in the middle of the room wearing only a sleeveless black jumpsuit, imperious and stern. Shiro could see underneath the facade though, to the uncertainty in his eyes, to the way his hands were trembling faintly.

“Here,” Shiro said, patting the bed beside him, and Lotor came over.

“What are you reading?” Lotor asked as he settled in next to him, cradling his cup of hot chocolate in his hands.

Obviously Shiro hadn’t been reading anything, but he knew the Castle of Lions had a vast library of literature and he pulled up the database, looking through all the unfamiliar titles. “Now that you’re here we should start something new,” he said, hoping the lie wouldn’t be too obvious, though he wasn’t sure it would matter even if it was. He frowned a little as he scrolled through. “Help me- what should we chose?”

Lotor leaned closer to look at the datapad in his lap, his body throwing off heat like a furnace. Shiro found himself flushing a little at his closeness, at the strange hushed and secret thing that was happening between them.

“This one,” Lotor said, pointing at something called _The Tale of Arquin_. “It’s an ancient Altean classic.”

“Alright,” Shiro said quietly and opened the file. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, a dry history maybe, but the story was something closer to a fantasy novel instead, set ten thousand years ago or beyond. It was written in an engaging style and Shiro found himself drawn in immediately as he started to read out loud.

Arquin was an Altean diplomat sent to the Galra Kingdom- it wasn’t an Empire, not yet- where he fell into a world of intrigue and a torrid affair with the Galra princess. By the end of the first chapter Shiro was hopelessly hooked and found himself smiling as he read quietly.

He startled a little as Lotor pulled the empty cup out of his hand and set it down on the nightstand next to his own.

“Thank you,” Shiro paused to say and Lotor made a quiet noncommittal sound before lying down with his back to him, pulling the blanket higher over his shoulders.

“Keep going,” he said. “It’s about to get good.”

Shiro smiled and turned back to the datapad to keep reading. The second chapter had a thrilling fight scene, and by the end of the third Arquin and the Galra princess were sneaking off into the night to meet secretly in the gardens.

Lotor’s breathing was slow and even beside him but he occasionally murmured corrections when Shiro stumbled over the pronunciation of alien names so Shiro knew he wasn’t asleep. By the time the fourth chapter came around Shiro took a chance and dropped his left hand to run his fingers through Lotor’s hair.

He stiffened a little and for a moment Shiro was afraid he was about to get up and leave, but something in his gut told him to keep going so he just kept reading like there wasn’t anything strange going on here, kept stroking Lotor’s hair. Slowly he relaxed and Shiro let himself relax too. The long white strands were silky and smooth over Shiro’s fingers, cool in contrast to the heat of Lotor’s skin. The slow steady motion was impossibly soothing, for both of them Shiro hoped. He kept going until his arm got tired and then stopped and let his hand rest on the sheets, still buried in Lotor’s hair.

Shiro must have dozed off eventually because he woke sometime later to find himself pressed against Lotor’s back, the datapad lying awkwardly between them. He felt oddly at peace, untroubled by nightmares for once.

He’d always been cold and alone in his cell and later in the lab. Being warm and wrapped up in blankets, having someone laying beside him, meant he wasn’t captured anymore, it meant he was safe.

He wondered at himself, at what he was doing. It was strange to be here with Lotor in his bed, to be finding comfort with him instead of going to the others. If they found out about this they wouldn’t understand, they might be angry or feel betrayed. For a brief moment he considered waking Lotor and sending him away but he shut down that thought almost as soon as he had it. He couldn’t do that to him and didn’t want to do it to himself either.

He pressed a little closer instead, turning to bury his face in Lotor’s hair and breathing deeply. He smelled like the soap they had in the castle and underneath it like something crisp and electric, like the air before a thunderstorm.

When Shiro woke in the morning he was alone with nothing but two empty cups on his nightstand and a few long strands of white hair on his sheets to show that Lotor had ever been there at all.

That night, after Shiro led Lotor up into the cockpit of the Black Lion so they could go to the Kral Zera, Lotor turned to go down to the hold but Shiro stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

“Stay here,” he said gently. “We have a few hours, I can read _The Tale of Arquin_ as we travel. I think we have enough time to finish it.”

Lotor smiled at him in a way that seemed profoundly sad. “I’ve never finished it,” he said, “and I’d prefer not to now.”

“Why not?” Shiro asked. He wanted to know what happened next, how it all ended. He needed to know if Arquin and the princess would end up together, if he ever figured out who was trying to assassinate the Galra king. Shiro couldn’t imagine choosing not to finish, choosing to just- not _know_.

“I’m saving it,” Lotor said quietly. “That way, even in my darkest moments, I still have something to look forward to.”

Shiro let go of his wrist, not sure what to say to that. Lotor looked away and Shiro shivered a little at the expression in his eyes, like the longing he’d seen when he’d come upon Lotor in the meeting room but something impossibly worse, brittle and aching.

“Maybe something else, then,” Shiro said. “You choose.”

Lotor was quiet for a long moment and then he looked down and smiled. “Alright,” he said and took the datapad when Shiro offered it. He sat down in the chair behind the pilot’s seat and Shiro found himself breathing a little easier as he sat too, wrapping his hands around the Lion’s controls.

“I’ll read this time,” Lotor said. “You should probably keep your eyes on where we’re going.”

Shiro laughed a little. “Yeah, probably,” he said, and Lotor started to read.

  


_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [barbitone](http://barbitone.tumblr.com/) \- NSFW art at [barbitone-afterdark](https://barbitone-afterdark.tumblr.com/)


End file.
